JIB Awards 2005: Miscellaneous Thoughts

An Aussie immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave is founder and managing editor of Israellycool, one of the world's most popular pro-Israel blogs (and the one you are currently reading)
He is a happy family man, and a lover of steak, Australian sports and girlie drinks

1. Emailing me expressing how dumb the awards are, or how I should disqualify those who are canvassing for votes, or how I should have excluded various blogs on the basis of their readership, is a waste of time. And since it is my time being wasted reading such emails, I would rather you didn’t bother.

2. Emailing the Jerusalem Post expressing your disappointment that they have shared the responsibility of hosting the awards with a right-wing blog like Israellycool, is an even bigger waste of time, considering the fact that I started them. I am part of the package. Deal with it.

3. Using your blog to rubbish the inclusion of various blogs is poor form. It is even poorer form to bring up the bloggers’ religions, which are irrelevant, considering that giving exposure to Israel advocacy blogs is an aim of the awards, and you needn’t be Jewish to have such a blog.

For the record, I have always been very fair in defining Israel advocacy. Left-wing and right-wing blogs alike have been included in this category.

4. LGF is definitely an Israel advocacy blog. So quit the whining and bad sportsmanship, which is undermining the spirit in which these awards are intended. The JPost and I have worked very hard on the awards, and the last thing I want is nastiness entering the equation.

5. Enjoy yourselves! I don’t mean it is as a cliche when I say “it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose.” That’s the truth..it really doesn’t matter. The whole idea is to bring attention to the nominated blogs. In this sense, they hopefully all win.

I apologize if this post seems harsh, and I seem frazzled, but I think I have been fairly patient up until now. I guess even a laidback Aussie has his limits.

"Israellycool is one of a few excellent blogs digging into stories, giving context to the news as reported and shining a light on slanted and biased journalistic agendas" - Michael Dickson, StandWithUs

"..the notorious Israellycool.com, which gently skips between right-wing rants against Islam, posts about science fiction and - what else? - blogs about the Eurovision song contest." - Tim Jonze, The Guardian

"Posting from Israelly cool is like posting from Der Sturmer. "Probably the most infamous was ‘Der Stűrmer’ by the anti-Semite Julius Streicher who claimed that ‘Der Stűrmer’ was Hitler’s favourite read. However, Goebbels viewed the newspaper as little more than a ‘daily rag’ and believed that it was more likely to harm the regime than present it in its best light such was the paucity of its contents that occasionally bordered on the pornographic." Good old Aussie dan fits the definition perfectly" - Greta Berlin